Ocean City makes high-tech plans

OCEAN CITY (AP) -- Welcome to the Beach of the Future, where high tide
meets high-tech.

If this southern New Jersey city's plans come to fruition next summer, Ocean City would be a place where an electronic wristband can pay for access to the beach, food, drinks and parking, and can even send a text message to a mother's cell phone if a child strays too far away from her beach chair.

It'd a place where the garbage cans could e-mail the public works department to come empty them, and lifeboats that float away could send signals to help the city track them down.

And people wouldn¹t even think about trying to sneak onto the beach without paying: beach checkers would be able to scan the sands with handheld devices and instantly know who among that group of 15 people sprawled out on towels and under umbrellas didn't pay to get onto the beach.

These are among the features of a citywide wireless network Ocean City is planning for next summer that would offer residents free Internet access. Tourists would pay about $6 a day, helping pay for the network.

Beach badges, those plastic or cloth scourges of the Jersey shore could become a thing of the past if this catches on.

"This is the future," said Karen Kinloch, a summer resident. "It's where we're at right now. It's probably overdue. It's kind of antiquated to take a piece of plastic and pin it to your swimsuit."

Will McKinley, a badge checker stationed on boardwalk at the 19th Street beach, said the new system would make his job easier.

"It will take the hassle out of going up to people and asking to see their badges," he said. "They're more OK with it up here. On the beach, they don't like to be hassled."

He estimates 5 to 10 percent of people at his post either try to sneak on without paying, or lie to him, offering excuses including that their badge is on a T-shirt on a beach chair near the water.

City Business Administrator Jim Rutala said Ocean City rarely issues summonses to those caught without badges, which cost $5 per day, $10 for a week, or $20 for the entire summer.

"When someone doesn't have a tag, they're asked to buy one then and there, and they usually do, either for the day or the week," Rutala said. "But certainly it would save the effort of having to go up and bother someone."

But the new system also could eliminate McKinley's job. Last year, Ocean City spent more than $282,000 to pay 170 badge checkers. Jonathan Baltuch, whose Atlanta-based Marketing Resources Inc. is helping the city plan the system, estimated the new gear could cut that cost in half.

Nationwide, nearly 20 coastal municipalities have wireless Internet systems, mostly in California and Florida, according to the Web site MuniWireless.com. But few, if any, boast the kind of wireless wonders Ocean City is planning.

There have been problems with municipal wireless networks across the country, including difficulty getting a signal in certain spots, or accessing some Web sites, said Esme Vos, MuniWireless' founder.

"I have experienced that myself in London," she said. "But those problems are being tweaked."

She said the system Ocean City is envisioning should be relatively easy to build and operate. And Baltuch said the wide, unobstructed beach, combined with relatively few trees and almost no tall buildings to interfere with wireless signals, all work in Ocean City's favor.

Ocean City would use a combination of Wi-Fi to provide Internet access, and RFID, which is the type of tracking technology that libraries and department stores use to make sure no one sneaks books or merchandise out the door.

A planned feature that's proving popular with parents in the city that calls
itself "America's Greatest Family Resort" is the ability to link one wristband electronically to others. For instance, a mother going to the beach with three small children could have her bracelet linked to those of her children. If one of them passes an electronic sensor at the entrance or exit to the boardwalk without the right adult, a text message would instantly be sent to her cell phone to alert her.

"I've helped lost children try to find their parents on the beach, and that would be a great thing," Kinloch said. "It's easy for them to stray off. You only turn your head for a second, and they can be gone. It does happen."

Even the trash cans on this beach would be high-tech. Special solar-powered units would have sensors that, when the container is three-quarters full, would automatically send an e-mail to the public works department asking a worker to come empty them.

And parking lots near the beach would have signs that would tell drivers how many open spots there are, and where they're located.

The $3 million network would be owned by the city but paid for by a vendor.

The city has requested proposals from interested firms, which are due by the end of the month, and hopes to award a contract by early September.

The network would enable city officials to know exactly how many people are on the beach at a particular time.

"They can see that at 1:30, there are 60,000 people on the beach, and say 'Hey, we need to get some more police into that area,'" said Baltuch, the consultant.

He estimated the network could generate $14 million in revenue for the city over the first five years, and $12 million for the company that operates it, through user fees and advertisements to be sold on the network.